We talk about comics because we love comics.

Superman

Welcome back! This week Jon and I decided to review the first issue of DC’s new event series: Dark Knight: Metal.

It is written by Scott Snyder with art by Greg Capullo and Jonathan Glapion. We had already did a podcast on the prelude books: The Forge and The Casting (Podcast 115) so we were very excited to read the first issue.

In the podcast, Jon and I refer to the series as just:

but the real name is:

It was a fun read that had many questions and not very many answers (just like the prelude comics) but we are looking forward to the next issue to hopefully start getting some answers.

Welcome back, CM Podcast fans. Jon and I both have this cold that’s been going around so we apologize in advance for the coughs and hope to be back to 100% next week.

I have been reading Nick Spencer’s Steve Rogers: Captain America and really have been enjoying it. It is a controversial story because it has Cap as an Agent of Hydra instead of the Sentinel of Liberty. Time will tell if this will go down as a great story or terrible idea in the annals of history.

This gave me the idea to talk about 3 other controversial stories and how people reacted to them. In this podcast, we review the following:

Identity Crisis (2004)

Ed Brubaker’s Captain America (2005)

The new 52 Launch (2011)

Also, In the podcast Jon speaks to the criticism that DC received on their female characters in the new universe. To give you a visual on how women were portrayed in the new 52 here are 3 examples (left to right): Catwoman, Starfire and Voodoo.

Jon and I recently came across the show bible and read a few passages and then started to reminisce about the show. Since it’s the 25th anniversary, we could not think of a better time to talk about this ground breaking show and it’s vision of Batman.

Join us as we reflect upon the show and characters and compare it to today’s movies.

Marvel and DC crossover comic events are very rare nowadays but that was not always the case. In fact, 20 years ago was one of the best Marvel/DC comic events that ever happened and it was called the Amalgam Universe!

These Amalgam comics were the result of a battle between the Marvel and DC universes…

The champions fought each other in a limited series called DC Versus Marvel (or Marvel Versus DC depending on which issue you were buying). The heroes battles each other and it caused such a mess that is smashed the 2 universes together in 1 amalgamated universe.

Jon and I reflect back on the events that lead up to the Amalgam Comics to be published. This will be a 2 part podcast so tune in next week for part 2.

Time is a funny thing. It seems like yesterday I was picking up the first issue of Mark Waid and Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come and I was amazed at the painted artwork and great story.

Well, it was actually 20 years ago this year that I read that first issue. The story and it’s message is still relevant now as it was back then.

Jon has never read Kingdom Come and I recently acquired the collected trade paper back and lent it to him. I told him that he is really going to enjoy it and that we should do a podcast on this landmark series. Jon took the book and when I saw him a few days later, he was very impressed and was really keen on turning this into a podcast.

I am a fan of the book. Jon became a fan of it and we hope you listen to this podcast and give it a try. I am glad that DC gave permission to Mark and Alex to tell this different and dark tale of morality and forgiveness.

We like video games. So much so that Jon and I attended PAX East this year and saw a lot of great games that will be coming out through 2016. This got me thinking that there are many video games that feature superheroes and this would make for a good podcast.

We start off the show talking about the classic Konami arcade game – X-men: Children of the Atom. This was a standard ‘Beat’em Up‘ that features X-men characters beating up on well know villains like Juggernaut, The Toad and Magneto. What was unique about this game is that a special cabinet was made that allowed 6 people to play at once. Here is a pic of how it looked:

This is one of the first (if not only) arcade that allows 6 people to play at once. I had a great time playing this one back in the day.

WE spend some time going over the other great arcade games and eventually move on to some awesome console games like: Ultimate Spider-man, Marvel Ultimate Alliance and X-men Legends.

These games are great because they all have fantastic stories with dozens of Marvel characters (both heroes and villains). The more we talked about them, the more I want to go back and play the games.

We end the podcast talking about the greatest superhero video series: Batman – Arkham Series: Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Arkham Origins and Arkham Knight. This series is the pinnacle of how all video games featuring heroes should be made.

Also, we are celebrating out 1 year anniversary of Comics Misremembered this month so thanks for listening and looking forward to another year of making podcasts!

It’s the end of 2015 and instead of doing a lame top 10 or 20 list of comics that you should have read like other sites and podcasts, we decided to come up with our own award show for the comics and publishing companies of 2015.

We are calling the award “The Hazie” because it fits with our theme of barely remembering the stories of comics that we have read. We had a great time coming up with creative categories in which we “award” comics, creators and companies for the material they put out in 2015.

Here is an artist rendition of the much coveted Hazie award:

(This is not actually the award. Maybe we will have an actual award next year.)

We had a great time recording this podcast. So much so, that we had to break it down into 2 parts. Here is part 1 of our Hazie Awards.

I was scrolling through my Twitter feeds earlier this week and I saw this post from Jimmy Palmiotti previewing an upcoming cover to the Harley Quin series. Here is the art for the cover:

As you can see, Harley has changed the color to her hair. In fact, the comic version of Harley Quinn is starting to look more and more like the Suicide Squad movie version of Harley Quinn played by Margot Robbie.

I have noticed this with each passing year that if a comic movie or show is successful, the more the comic series starts looking like that successful movie or show. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Well, the answer all depends on what changed in the comic.

Jon and I talk about the following successful movie franchises and the direct impact to their comic counterpart. Here is the list:

Superman franchise

Batman franchise

X-Men franchise

Spider-man franchise

Phase 1 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Guardians of Galaxy

These changes are going to be more common with each release of DC and Marvel’s upcoming movies and the changes are not necessarily a good thing.

At the end of the podcast, we touch quickly on Star Wars: The Force Awakens and I share a comic story of the Marvel translation of Return of the Jedi.

Today Jon and I talk about comic characters that are either Over hyped/Over saturated or under appreciated.

Starting with the Over Hyped! Over Saturated characters:

Cable – The mysterious mutant man that makes for mediocre monthly mythos. We both have a litany of problems that we have with this character and why he should not be brought back in October.

Superman – Yes, it may be a bit sacrilegious to not like Superman if you like comics but we can’t help ourselves. He may be the most boring character ever created and we will give you many reasons why this is true.

Batman and Deadpool spin-offs – Marvel and DC! Enough of these spin-off books!! We can’t take the over saturation of the excessive cashing in on these popular characters. If you keep this off – there will be a backlash in the market. The tipping point right now is Gwenpool. Really, Gwenpool!? Are you kidding me? Obviously not.

Now on to characters that are under appreciated and we would like to see more of (preferably in their own monthly titles):

Aquaman– The Superfriends cartoon made him a joke and recent comics have tried to change that. Comic fans know that Aquaman is a good character and if he was back in a monthly book, he could be a great character. Jon gushes about his man crush on Aquaman and explains why we need to have him more prominently placed in the DCU and DC You.

“I’m the reason why everyone hates Aquaman.”

Longshot (Marvel) and Firestorm (DC) – These are my 2 picks.

Longshot is a mutant alien with the powers of “luck” and he is a slave in a universe controlled by Walking Nightmares called Mojos that force him to compete on reality TV shows for their amusement. How relevant is this character today!! Give him his own series, Marvel!

“Longshot is the template for every Rob Liefeld character ever!”

Firestorm – DC character that is probably one of their most powerful characters ever created and no one knows what to do with him. Give him another chance, DC!

“Lose the flamehead and shoulder pads, Firestorm”

Give a listen to the podcast for the reasons to love and hate these characters.

The final part in our John Byrne Trilogy – The Week 15 podcast part 3.

In this podcast, Jon and myself talk about Byrne’s work in the late 80’s into the 90’s.

Superman: Man of Steel – This was Byrne’s 1989 reboot of the Superman franchise. Jon and myself don’t really care for Superman so we both have not read it but we go over a couple of facts I found on the internet.

After a few years with DC, Byrne comes back to Marvel and takes over West Coast Avengers. The first change he makes is to call it Avengers West Coast and then goes no to write and draw on of the most epic Vision stories titled Vision Quest. We talk about the bizarre love triangle (apologies to New Order) between Vision, The Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man. Jon gives the best line in this discussion “Kids, practice safe hex.” This will one day become a T-Shirt. Bryne is also responsible for the creation of a 3rd Avengers team called The Great Lake Avengers.

We end this discussion with John Byrne’s independent work with Dark Horse. He creates John Byrne’s Next Men. I go over how this project was almost a DC then a Marvel property but it ultimately goes to Dark Horse.

If you want to see some of John Byrne’s excellent pencils and inks then check out this tumblr account – John Byrne Draws. It is not run by John Byrne:

Twitter Feed

Here at Comics Misremembered Podcast, we like to uncover hidden comics, movies, shows, etc. that you may not have heard about but are definitely worth your time. This week, we are talking about the super hero movie called Super. It was an independent movie that was written and directed by James Gunn (Guardians of the … Continue reading CM Podcast 225 – Super […]

Time Warner has a cool app called DC Universe that carries all the DC Heroes animated shows like Batman TAS, Superman TAS, Justice League Unlimited, and more. It also has new and exclusive live action hero shows like Titans, Doom Patrol and Swamp Thing. Jon and I recently subscribed to the DC Universe app to … Continue reading CM Podcast 224 – Swamp Thing Sh […]

We like to do new comics reviews every once in a while because there are always new series coming out that need attention. We like to let our listeners know about new writers and artists out there that are putting out some high quality comics! This week we are reviewing 4 new comics series that … Continue reading CM Podcast 223 – New Comics Review

Back in 1990, DC editors allowed Howard Chaykin and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez to use some of their beloved 1950 and 1960s Sci-Fi characters to be used in a very mature and violent miniseries. Twilight is quite an oddity. DC only has a few comics that were released dealing with mature themes up to this point … Continue reading CM Podcast 222 – Twilight

Jon and I normally will go to the Boston Comic Con (now called the Fan Expo Boston) and that is being held this weekend (8/16 – 8/18) but we will not be attending this year. :0 The reason we are not going is nothing that Fan Expo Boston did; they have always put together a … Continue reading CM Podcast 221 – TerrifiCon 2019

The X-Men soft rebooted again last week (is this like the 4th one so far? I lost count) but I ain’t even mad at you, Marvel for doing it. I was really enjoying the last incarnation of the Uncanny X-Men that started up last year and then I heard that they were going to stop … Continue reading CM Podcast 220 – House Of X and Power Of X

At this time each year, there is the San Diego Comic Con – one of the oldest, largest comic cons. At this comic con, writers and artists get together to celebrate their peers with the Eisner Awards. We like to cover the nominees to find out about stories that we may have missed during the … Continue reading CM Podcast 219 – 2019 Eisner Awards Nominees and Wi […]

Last week, we reviewed the 1st story arc to Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson’s comic: The Boys. This week we are reviewing the Amazon Prime version of the TV Show that launched on 7/26/19. The first season is 8 episodes long and we are talking about the first 3 episodes because that is all that … Continue reading CM Podcast 218 – The Boys (TV Show 2019) […]

Hello again and welcome back to Comics Misremembered. In this week’s podcast, we focus on The Boys. This comics was created by writer Garth Ennis and artist Darick Robertson. It originally came out in 2006 under the Wildstorm Imprint – this was Jim Lee’s imprint that was published through DC. The Boys put out 6 … Continue reading CM Podcast 217 – The Boys (C […]

Marvel Cinematic Universe’s 2nd Spider-Man movie came out July 2nd 2019 and it is titled: Spider-Man: Far From Home We went and saw it last Sunday. I was very excited for this movie because the previews had Jake Gyllenhaal playing Mysterio, a long time villain in the Spider-Man comics. This is the first time he … Continue reading CM Podcast 216 – Spider-Man: […]